“Who are you to question the wisdom pf the Dragonfolk,’’” Aurian was flattened by the dragon’s roar. The colored lights of its speech exploded into jagged shards of white lightning that seared into her vision. The Mage picked herself up and glared at him, so angered by his bullying arrogance that she forgot to be afraid. “Who am I?” she cried. “I am Aurian, daughter of Geraint, Fire-Mage. My father died trying to unlock the secrets of the Dragonfolk’s so-called wisdom, so don’t expect me to be impressed with your powers! Spare me your games, dragon. I have no time for them! The Magefolk—Wizards, you used to call them—have turned to evil. The Caldron has been found, and the Nihilim let loose into the world. What, in your infinite wisdom, do you suggest I do about that?”
The dragon’s eyes flared bright crimson. “Then the ancient prophecies have come true! You must be the One!”
“The one? Which one?” Aurian realized that she was shouting. “I don’t understand!”
“I see that the centuries have done little to moderate the infamous Wizardly temper,” the dragon snapped. It rattled its wings in irritation, sending a small avalanche of gold and gems cascading musically down its sloping treasure pile. “I speak of the Sword, you imbecile! Chierannath, Sword of Flame, whose making was preordained by the greatest of our Seers, to combat the misuse of the other Great Weapons! You dare speak to me of loss and grief? I, who have been sundered from my people, from my friends and loved ones, to wait here, frozen in time, until the Sword should be needed! My task, ignorant one, is to identify the One for whom it was forged. And now you have come, disturbing my slumber with your questions and your puny rage!”
Aurian spoke with the calm of deep shock. “Are you saying that the Sword—the mightiest of the Great Weapons—was crafted centuries before my birth specifically for me?”
“That remains to be seen.” The dragon sounded skeptical. “I admit that when I imagined the One, I had more of a ... heroic figure in mind.”
“So you’d be happier if I were some hulking, muscle-bound warrior, would you? Well, hard luck!”
The creature’s eyes flashed with a dangerous light. “Watch your words. I will take no abuse from a puny, two-legged Wizard!”
Aurian swallowed hard, remembering the last fix in which her temper had landed her. The dragon had no right to complain about people being quick to anger! “Very well,” she said. “Assuming I am the One—what happens now?”
“Assuming that you are—you will complete the third test, which is to re-create the lost Staff of Earth.”
Aurian was speechless. Re-create the Staff? Impossible! Doubt slid insidiously into her mind, and disappointment swamped her. He’s right—I can’t be the One of whom he speaks, she thought miserably. But she took a firm grip on her staff and straightened her spine, knowing that if she gave up without trying, she would never be able to live with herself.
The dragon was watching her intently, its curious eyes unblinking. “Well? Do you intend to stand there gaping forever?”
Damn you, Aurian thought. “Am I allowed to ask questions?”
He laughed. “Very good! I may answer three questions— but not the obvious one. Make them count, Wizard!”
The Mage remembered what she had heard of the history of the Staff. “I was told the Staff had been lost during the Cataclysm,” she ventured. “Was it destroyed, then?”
“Yes.” That was all he said.
Don’t do me any favors, Aurian thought sourly. “But,” she went on, “you said re-create—so the powers of the Staff must still exist . . .” In a flash of inspiration she remembered Anvar regaining his powers, and how the Archmage had stolen them in the first place. She thought of the crystal door underground that had sapped her powers, and the bracelets of Harihn’s folk . . .
“Was that a question?” The dragon broke into her train of thought—deliberately, Aurian was sure.
“No,” she said hastily, trusting her intuition. “This is my second question: is the crystal that holds the power of the Staff within this room?”
Starbursts of light filled the chamber. “Yes!” the dragon sang. “And now you must locate it.”
Aurian swore a bloodcurdling oath. Now she knew why the dragon had such an uncomfortable bed. It was a decoy and another test. Somewhere in that pile, indistinguishable from all the other gems, lay the crystal that she sought. The Mage was horrified. It’ll take years to search through that lot, she thought. Think, Aurian! There must be a better way! And there was, she realized. Because, by her nature, she had always been drawn to her father’s Fire-magic, she had a tendency to neglect Eilin’s side of her heritage. Now, at last, it would come into its own.
Grounding the heel of her staff firmly, the Mage gripped it in both hands and summoned the powers of Earth: the slow, heavy lives of the mountains and stones, the soil’s fecund womb, the exuberant springing of growing things, and the bright, brief lives of cj£%tures that crawled or ran, spawning in the endless cycle of life, death, and ultimate decay from which new life would spring. By all these and more, which were the essence of its very creation, Aurian called upon the powers of the Staff of Earth.
And the powers answered! Aurian’s staff almost jerked from her hands, to point at the heart of the dragon’s couch. The serpent-carved wood began to hum and vibrate, and to blossom with a thick emerald light. The dragon gave a startled squawk —the most unmusical sound she had heard it make—and scrambled aside wich a speed that beJied its massive size as its bed began to shift and shudder, spilling in a glittering cascade f across the chamber. From the center of the pile an answering ray of green shot upward. Aurian dropped, protecting her head, as a mighty explosion of gems and gold shot violently outward to rattle against the walls.
In the silence that followed, the Mage discovered, to her relief, that she had kept a firm hold on her tugging staff. She stood up shakily, bruised all over from the hard-flung treasure, to find the chamber flooded with a rich green light. The dragon’s head snaked out from beneath a protecting wing and she heard the rasp of air in its throat as it sucked in a huge breath. “Upon my word,” it said, sounding awed, “you do nothing by halves, Wizard!”
The staff pointed unerringly to the center of the room. There, in the space that it had cleared so vigorously for itself, a glowing green gem, about~fhe size of Aurian’s circled finger and thumb, sat in solitary splendor. The Mage approached it cautiously, narrowing her eyes against the intense emerald radiance of the stone. She halted an arm’s length away, prevented from going closer by the energy that pulsed from it like a wall of green fire. Not until she had remade the Staff would that power be tamed and contained so that a Mage could wield it and survive. But how could it be done? Aurian ran her hands down her own staff, feeling Anvar’s skilled and lively carvings beneath her fingers. The twin serpents that coiled around it were so lifelike that she could almost feel them move . . . That gave her an idea . , .
There was, however, one last thing to settle. Aurian turned to the dragon. “I want to ask my third question.”
The creature seemed surprised. “Ask, then. But I warn you, I cannot tell you how to accomplish your task.”
“That’s all right. What I want to know is, If I re-create the Staff, do I get to keep it?”
The dragon threw back its head and roared—but with laughter, not the rage she had expected. “Temeritous Wizard! No one ever beat your race for sheer gall! Yes, you may keep the Staff, for you will have earned it. But be warned—always be aware of the forces at your command, and the destruction you might wreak. Never make the mistake that the users of the Caldron have made!”
Approaching the stone as closely as she dared, Aurian concentrated her powers, not on the gem itself, but upon her own staff. She passed her hands over the familiar surface, her fingers tingling and bathed in light as she strove, using the magic of the living Earth, to breathe life into the wood. Beneath her fingers, the serpents stirred, their carved eyes winking into sparkling awareness. Forked tongues flicking in and out, they raised their scaly heads from the Staff. Aurian bent her will upon them, instructing, commanding. Holding her staff by its iron-shod heel, she held it out to touch the crystal. The serpents reached forth and took the stone, grasping it tightly between them in their fanged jaws.